Photoinitiated cationic ring-opening polymerization is a technique widely employed in a variety of commercial applications for coatings, adhesives, printing inks and stereolithography. In such applications, the polymerizable substrate is subjected to irradiation with light for a brief period during which time the photopolymerization must proceed essentially to completion.
Consequently, only those monomers that undergo very high rates of polymerization may be employed. Certain epoxide monomers display high reactivity in photoinitiated cationic polymerization and are suitable for such uses while most others undergo sluggish reaction and are not. As a consequence, contemporary practical applications such as those mentioned above that require short irradiation periods are restricted to the use of only relatively few, typically expensive, epoxide monomer substrates. Further, due to their slow photocure rates, oxetane monomers are not generally useful by themselves. Thus, a need exists for photopolymerizable epoxide and oxetane compositions that overcome at least one of the aforementioned deficiencies.